Sightless
by The Saintlike Weasley
Summary: She'll never be the welcome recipient of that lopsided smile he saves only for Katniss Everdeen, the Girl on Fire. Because she'll only ever be Madge - Madge Undersee, the Girl who Burned. Oneshot.


_Inspired by the repeated line I've seen all over the internet: "Madge Undersee, the Girl who Burned." In no way did I invent that quote, I am merely using it as a prompt._

_**Disclaimer:** I am not Suzanne Collins. Therefore, I no own Hunger Games. Or Catching Fire. Or Mockingjay._

_So ya._

* * *

_She sees him standing on a hill surrounded by thick foliage with green grass stains on the worn knees of his pants. He smiles the smile she only ever saw him show Katniss, and she can't help the flutter in her chest when she realizes it's directed at her._

_ He gestures for her to follow, and she does. She runs to him, fast, faster than she's ever run before, until she's flying through the bushes._

_ She reaches an open field, the grassy verdure overgrown, entangling her ankles in it's grip. "Gale?" She calls. He can help her. He's great with these things, she thinks._

_ He's standing by a tree. Leaning against it like he owns it, hands dug deep in his pockets. He's no longer smiling._

_ "Gale?" She calls again, pointing at her feet. "Gale, I'm stuck, can you help me?"_

_ His thick brows fall, the corner of his mouth twitching down. "What are you doing here, Madge?"_

_ "You -" she swallows, her throat suddenly dry. "You told me to follow you."_

_ "I didn't do a damn thing, Undersee."_

_ Undersee. The name is an insult. Because he doesn't ever call anyone by their first names unless they're friends. And she thought they were friends._

_ Thought they were _more_ than friends._

_ "Gale?"_

_ He stands up straight, shaking his head. "I don't want you here."_

_ Madge shakes her head. No. No. Not when she's so close. "Gale, no, you don't understand!"_

_ "Sleeps in a warm bed every night, got food in her belly, it's practically overflowing in the kitchens. Never needed anything."_

_ "Gale!"_

_ "Never _needed_ anything. You don't know what it's like to _need_."_

_ She's crying now. "Gale, stop!"_

_ He's leaving her. He's walking away, not once looking back. Like she wasn't ever there. She struggles with the vines wrapped tight around her ankles. Why won't they let her go? Why won't they just _let her go_?_

x X x

"This would be much easier if you simply answered the question, Miss Undersee."

Madge blinks at her toes. She curls them, uncurls them. "Miss Undersee?"

No answer.

"Again."

The electric shock jolts her head back. The muscles in her neck strain. She blinks back tears. Afterwards, her ears ring.

"Miss Undersee, I will only ask one more time."

She blinks at her toes. Curls them. Uncurls them.

"Again."

* * *

They put her in a dark room, make her sit in a chair with buckles on her hands and ankles. They put an IV in her arm, injecting something that's supposed to keep her body hydrated. They shove a tube down into her stomach through her nose for easy feeding.

Then they leave.

And they don't come back.

* * *

At first she counts. One-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand... but she loses count. So she closes her eyes and thinks. Imagines his face, pretends he's looking at her like he looked at Katniss, imagines his hands and arms around her. Her face in his neck. She thinks he would've smelled smokey, like coal, but with something else. Something more natural.

Eventually, though, her imaginations blended into her dreams, but in her dreams she had no control. It was here that she watched Gale beckon her along from atop a hill. Here where reality came crashing back down.

Because she will never be Katniss Everdeen. Will never be worthy of that smile, that lopsided grin that Gale only ever saved for the Girl on Fire.

Because Madge is just Madge. Madge Undersee, the girl who burned_._

* * *

She still remembers the feeling of flames licking up her calves, her wrist trapped beneath a fallen beam. She screams and screams but _no one comes _and it only makes her scream more.

She pulls until she feels something pop and she can't pull anymore so she lays down, struggling to breathe because the air is so thick, thick with smoke and she can't do anything but watch her house burn.

Then she closes her eyes and knows nothing but heat and scorching pain and only wishes that Gale will think of her fondly when she's gone. That whenever he sees strawberries he'll think of her, and not Katniss, that he'll think of _her _and hopes he thinks of her as Madge and not _Undersee _because she _hates _it when he calls her that.

But even in her last breaths she knows he never will.

* * *

She almost wishes she died then. She almost wishes that the Capitol hadn't found her, hadn't picked her up while scouring the District for survivors – her father and Gale and the Everdeen's specifically, she learns. Almost wishes that she'd just _died. _It would've been easier.

But that would be giving up, and Madge didn't like the idea of the Capitol winning something over her. Because if she gives up here, she'll be letting them take a piece of her soul.

So although her days are to be spent in endless darkness, she never wishes for death.

She just wishes for _freedom._

* * *

She hears screams. They don't echo in the halls, but in her head they never leave.

And she cries so hard she throws up when she actually _recognizes _a voice. Peeta – but he couldn't possibly be here. He was in the Games. Should _still be in_ the Game. Right?

But there's no way they aren't his screams, his pleas for release, cries for help. And it hurts so much when, day after day, they start getting quieter and quieter, so she tries to call out to him, but nothing works. So she hums and prays that somehow, someone can hear her and take comfort in the sleepy tunes she hums hour after hour.

When Peeta's screams blend with someone else's – a woman's, she thinks, but sometimes they're a man's – she's only slightly thankful that it's not her.

* * *

She never stops humming. Little tunes she remembers from when she would play her piano in the living room on bright summer days.

A guard pounds on the door one night – or day, Madge isn't sure – and tell hers to "shut the hell up".

She doesn't. The guard goes away.

She starts straining her ankles against their bonds. Her arms, too. Tries to wake up deadened muscles. It's too late, she soon realizes – there's no longer any muscle to wake up.

She lays her head back and sighs. It's only now Madge realizes how tired she is.

* * *

She's dreaming when she first hears them. It's the same dream, the same torturous nightmare, the one where Gale looks at her like he doesn't know her and leaves her trapped in the middle of nowhere with no way out.

But something is different. In this dream there are guns and bullets and they're _everywhere _and they're all aimed at her and her heart is beating so fast, _so fast_.

She opens her eyes to pure darkness. But around her the sounds are chaotic.

_"Down! Get down!"_

_ "I need cover!"_

_ "Backup, we need backup down here now!"_

Madge breathes heavily. What was happening? What was going on? Nobody used guns here. Not that she knew of. Not that she knew much of anything here, though.

"H-hello?"

_"Start evacuating the prisoners!"_

Evacuating? What? Where – who were these people?

Madge blinks hard, trying for once to escape the darkness, to see what's happening because listening isn't enough anymore. She hears footsteps frantically passing by and she's not sure how much time has passed but she knows, she _knows _that they aren't coming for her.

So she screams. She screams and screams until her throat is raw and her room is flooded with light and her eyes are _searing_, because they haven't seen light in so, so long.

And Madge blinks and feels hands on her cheeks and fingers on her throat and she starts coughing and coughing because they're pulling the tube out of her nose and she flinches when the needle is removes and her bonds are removed.

And she smiles. She smiles, because even though she can't see, feel, can barely register her surroundings, she finally knows that she's _leaving_.

* * *

_To those who alerted this, I apologize, but to end this properly I removed a sentence, marked it as complete and have left it._

_Maybe someday I'll return to it. Currently, I am not feeling it. So many apologies.  
_


End file.
